Chivalry.

Not that I am intimately familiar with the Donner party, but "women and children" first has been an ethos of catastrophe for quite some time. Meaning the men had to stick it out with less food, comfort, warmth, safety etc. I'm sure that factors in somehow...

and maybe becasue they are more capable of calmly sitting tight and waiting. When there are differences they probably do mean something.

Among the ill-fated Donner party, two-thirds of the women survived while two-thirds of the men perished. Along with this, there are other cases where, in extremely adverse, life-threatening conditions (particularly in cold weather), women in general were more successful at staying alive than men were.

Does that mean men choke when the stakes are high? Of course not.

It is ridiculous to draw sweeping social conclusions from one study about tennis players. That study may be relevant to those particular tennis players who were studied, but that's all.

There's just way too much jumping to (predetermined) conclusions.

That is why they are "unforced." Do you watch or play tennis? When a player gets a raquet on it, and mis-hits the ball out of bounds or into the net, its "unforced." Its a very neutral sporting term. I know some of this is pseaking to a larger point, but still.

An unforced error is an error in service or return shot that cannot be attributed to the opponent; an error by the player on a shot that is not considered difficult; or an error made when under no pressure from the opponent.

The definition of "unforced error" is neutral, basically objective, definable and the same for men and women.

Maybe the unforced error is a sexist determinant. Perhaps when an error is committed by a male player it is attributed to the skillful stroke or placement of his male opponent. But when the error is committed by a woman player, it is simply a botched shot, a missed swing, or something else not attributed to the skill of her opponent. We do not encourage men to take responsibility for errors (e.g., not even Jimmy Baker and his Study Group could get such real guys like Cheney and Bush to acknowledge error); instead, we constantly pepper women to do so (see all those demanding that Hillary own up to her botched judgment on the Iraq war -- okay I don't like her position, but where is the pack chasing Cheney). I doubt perceptions on tennis courts are any different. Bush's error certainly was unforced, but instead the skill of the insurgency is credited.

My point is simply that actual "choking" may have nothing to do with the observation; our gender-mediated perceptions may produce the result. So maybe the whole notion that this is science should be dispelled. I always think it bears questioning the data set: here there is surely a subjective judgment involved and not one in which gender stereotypes are likely to be absent by those judging the boys and girls at play, even in the Grand Slam tournaments. We do see what we want to see in the behavior of women and men. This is not science; it is most likely a judgment call influenced by the judges' own gender-mediated perceptions, whether women or men. Maybe if we started crediting women for the skill displayed and holding men responsible for judgment errors, our world would suffer less from the consequences of all the choking that men do that no one wants to see or acknowledge -- and benefit more from recognizing that it is time for skillful and accomplished women (Hillary aside) to lead us out of the muck that men have made.

Has anybody considered that when women play against men they are playing against an assumed power/power structure that they have been taught all their lives is superior by definition?

Such power, being assumed by convention (and male superiority being tacitly considered "true" by other males in positions of power, who can manifest and perpetuate it) becomes, in fact, real.

I remember one event early in my professional career when I was "competing" against a male (we were department heads of separate departments) to determine the track for a particular set of business operations. I came to the meeting with the all-male executive officers fully prepared -- charts, documentation, presentations, the works. The guy on the other side showed up with nothing, but had played tennis at the club a few times with one of the VPs. Guess how that turned out. And on the way out the door, the top VP put his arm around me and told me what a great job I had done: Thanks for nothing, chummy male network.

Needless to say, I quit and started my own company, stayed outside corporate America like so many other women. None of the successful women who now make up the majority of entrepreneurs in our country "choke" -- but every one of them knows that when she's competing for a contract, or anything else, against a male, the odds are still stacked against her. She can't be as good as his game -- she has to be much better, and usually do it for a lot less cash.

For tennis players, who like the rest of us have been told in overt and covert ways since birth that they are "inferior" -- like, for example, in the Slate article -- is it any wonder that there's a subconcious recoil when they go face to face with men?

The problem isn't in the talent: We're choking on the bullshit we've been fed.

Definition of an unforced error (the variable the study examines.

"By definition, there are only three ways to end a point - with a winner, forced error or unforced error. The idea of an error being either forced or unforced is to place the blame for the error - who is responsible for the missed shot? Was the error forced by the aggressive play of the opponent or was it unforced, just a mistake by the player who hit the shot?...

An unforced Error is when the player has time to prepare and position himself or herself to get the ball back in play and makes an error. This is a shot that the player would normally get back into play. The real keys here are time and position. When the opponent takes away time by hitting the prior shot with extra pace this can result in a forced error. Also, when the opponent forces the player out of position with placement (depth and/or angle) this can result in a forced error."

http://www.tennis.com/yourgame/asktheeditors/asktheeditors.aspx?id=1432

The baseline power game results in more forced errors than unforced errors. Serve and volley, due to the long rallies that involve strategy and skill, result in more unforced errors. Men play more of a baseline power game due to size, training, and new racket technology. Thus, if you use “unforced error as the criteria for a “choke”, you have a problem due to the difference in women’s size and speed. The rise of dominant players is also a factor. In early 2000, this badly designed study would have had the exact opposite result. Speed isn't always a good thing. Many spectators are complaining that the pace of the game is making tennis boring to watch. In the men's game, serves have become so huge that often a whole set can pass with only a handful of brief rallies.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/tennis/balls.shtml

Serve and volley versus baseline

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/tennis/2001/australian_open/news/2001/01/24/men_semis_ap/

Arguing Power is ruining the men’s game, and the power is from the new technology in rackets: want a return to serve and volley.

"If the power has killed the men's game, it's really helped the women's," said Jon Wertheim, senior tennis writer at Sports Illustrated. "The women are at just the right spot -- no one is just looping the ball back and forth like they used to. The only thing is, in 10 years, the women will get to the same point that the men are now."

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,60177-1.html?tw=wn_story_page_next1

Big, booming serves and the subsequent short rallies offered up by the top men are often not conducive to a great spectacle.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/wimbledon2000/sportstalk/786657.stm

Serve and volley versus baseline Power (and the incredible power difference) explains the whole issue.